Best alternative to Fireworks???

Report · Nov 25, 2019

Think it is devastating that Fireworks is no longer available or has 64-bit support.

But does anyone know if Adobe has a replacement application or suit for just this application or if any other developer has one?

My opinion is that Fireworks is pefekt with combined bitmap and vector support, user friendly interface and the quality when exporting for the web.

Report · Nov 25, 2019

Nope, for me it is still best in class. And to confirm. Fireworks still works fine on Windows 10 64 bit. Only does not work on Mac 64bit. Immy workflow now days is to use Fireworks for my base mocking, treatment etc. Then save as a PSD ( Being mindful of Fireworks PSD pitfalls) and then importing into Adobe XD. I then use XD to prototype, create components, UI kits etc, and deliver the assets for developers. So far this is working well. I am hoping one day Affinity Designer will be able to step into Fireworks shoes. Currently it still does not have some basic tools like free transform. But it had allot of the same concepts around bitmap and vector with personas and then a step forward from that by being able to edit the file in either it's bitmap focused tool(Affinity Photo) or its vector tool (Affinity Designer). Which of you can imagine, is like having one file where you can toggle between working in Photoshop and Illustrator. But with a consistent navigation, layer/object selection experience. Else, in a blue sky world I am hoping Adobe adds some of these tools to XD. So it has some of the more powerful tooling like sketch.

Report · Nov 29, 2019

@glennweb currently the most critical issue with Affinity and web export is that no preview of the export is implemented, somewhat making the entire thing rather pointless, in my opinion.

On the one hand implementing pretty good web export controls, but on the other hand they decide to NOT include a web preview? Let's hope they fix that ASAP, but development seems glacial these past two years.

Report · Nov 29, 2019

I used to be an avid Photoshop and Fireworks user, and switched to PhotoLine a while ago.

PhotoLine is very similar to Fireworks:

seamless vector and bitmap integration. Even to the point of vector/bitmap combined patterns. No need to switch between an image editor and a vector app. Like Fireworks, everything can be done in one app.
pages
everything is non-destructive. And PhotoLine is the only other app that I know of that supports traditional Photoshop plugins to be applied non-destructively, which Fireworks also supports aside from Photoshop.
similar patterns, textures, gradient controls as the ones in Fireworks, but much more powerful.
great web file format support: aside from the expected ones, also Webp and great SVG import and export.
similar layer animation option, but also a simple animation tool for animated GIFs.
similar vector objects with non-destructive properties.
layer effects quite similar.

Differences:

web export preview is a separate screen.
no master pages as of yet
instead of slicing, PhotoLine has a similar option like Generator in Photoshop: export is layer based instead of sliced based. Then again, slicing is a very old-fashioned approach no longer really used, so...
no symbols in PhotoLine, but layers can be instanced instead.
no states

Otherwise, PhotoLine is by far more feature rich than Fireworks. The layer stack runs rings around Fireworks, and while FW is limited to 8bpc images only, PL offers the full breadth of image modes with up to 32bpc support. Vector booleans are non-destructive, and its range of adjustment layers and other effects dwarf Fireworks in comparison.

I also like how it is possible to integrate PhotoLine with other apps by sending layers or documents straight to external apps with round-tripping also supported. It can serve as a central hub in the image asset generation pipeline.

The only caveat is that the GUI and workflow are somewhat different compared to Fireworks or Photoshop. Once I got used to these and configured them to my liking, I can work much faster in PL than in either FW or PS. Some people get put off by the default GUI, though.

PS it is interesting to note here that nothing on the market today offers the same combination of features in one app. I always wonder what Fireworks would have looked like today if Adobe had given it the respect it deserved.

Report · Dec 02, 2019

Thanks for the tip about PhotoLine. Sure will give it a try. 🙂